80 whales buried mysteriously in Chilean desert

Marine graveyard is evidence for Noah’s Flood

Published: 01 December 2011(GMT+10)

Image from Daily Mail3

Figure 1. A complete fossil whale skeleton in the Chilean desert.

Researchers from the USA and Chile reported, in November 2011, a remarkable bone
bed on the west coast of northern Chile near the port city of Caldera, about 700
kilometres (440 miles) north of the capital, Santiago.1 Excavations uncovered the remains of some 80 baleen
whales of which more than 20 specimens were complete (figure 1).2 They also found other kinds of marine mammals including
an extinct dolphin with tusks and a sperm whale.3

The previous year, construction workers upgrading the Pan-American Highway discovered
the fossil site in a road cut just north of Caldera. Since then, teams of scientists
led by palaeontologist Nick Pyenson4
from the Smithsonian Institute and Mario Suarez from the nearby Museo Paleontologico
de Caldera5 have been working
to excavate the fossils while the road works were temporarily suspended.

The fossils alongside the highway are confined to a sandstone ridge about 20 metres
(70 feet) wide and 240 metres (800 feet) long (figure 2). Most whales were about
8 metres (25 feet) long, and perfectly preserved. Some whales were so close together
that they overlapped one another (figure 3). The site in a corner of the Atacama
Desert is now well above sea level and over a kilometre from the shore. Suarez said
it was well known that whale bones jutted out of the ridge, which was given the
name Cerro Ballena, or Whale Hill.6

Figure 2. Photo illustrates the extent and thickness of the outcrop
containing the whale fossils. Larger cobbles and pebbles are seen at the base of
the outcrop behind the person crouching, and on the top of the cut on the other
side of the road. Coarser lenses, possibly of pebbles or shells, are visible in
the embankment behind the man. Image from Daily Mail.3Click
for larger image.

Paleontologists were thrilled to find the treasure trove, describing it as “very
unusual”. Pyenson thinks the whales all died “more or less at the same
time” after they were trapped in a lagoon. Others suggest they became disoriented
and beached themselves. Paleontologist Erich Fitzgerald from Museum Victoria in
Australia said it’s possible the remains accumulated over thousands of years.
Whale expert Hans Thewissen from Northeast Ohio Medical University thought the whales
might have gathered in a lagoon and been stranded by an earthquake or storm. After
the connection to the ocean closed, the lagoon dried up and the whales died.

The puzzle of how these marine creatures died has caught news headlines with one
reporting “Fossil Bonanza Poses Mystery”. Another asked, “How
did 75 whales end up in the desert?”

Interestingly, some of those posting comments on these news reports suggested the
creatures perished in Noah’s Flood. Robert Raeburn of Western Australia said,
“The whales probably swam there when the whole world was covered in water,
about 4000 years ago at the time of Noah. They would then have been stranded when
the waters assuaged (drained back) to expose the dry land. … This all makes
sense when viewed from a ‘Bible’ perspective.” An email friend
suggested the same to Mario Suarez, one of the lead paleontologists. Not surprisingly,
this idea generated a deal of web comments.

What stops people making the obvious connection between these fossils and Noah’s
Flood? It’s the million-year ages assigned to the fossils.

The field evidence for large-scale catastrophe is overwhelming as these research
scientists have reported. What stops people making the obvious connection between
these fossils and Noah’s Flood? It’s the million-year ages assigned
to the fossils. On one comments thread Holly from the USA responded to the Noah’s
Flood idea with, “Nothing from the Bible perspective makes sense, since 4,000
years ago that area wasn’t covered with water. However it was about 2 million
years ago.”

But the 2-million-year-figure is the number paleontologists gave for the age of
the fossils. Actually, they said the whales probably died between 2 million and
7 million years ago—that is early Pliocene to early Miocene (according to
the International Stratigraphic Chart7).
But where did they get those ages from?

Figure 4. Late Cenozoic sedimentary basins on the west coast of
northern Chile. From Feldmann et al.11
Click for larger image

First, they assign the ‘series’ and ‘stage’ by the field
relationships among the strata and according to the fossils found therein.8 At this site they said that
the fossil dating is complicated and probably not sufficiently precise to determine
if the whales all died at the same time. Second, once the series and stage has been
decided they simply read the ‘age’ in millions of years off the chart.

Figure 5. Immense boulder conglomerate toward the base of the Caldera
basin indicating the high energy processes associated with the early sediment fill.
Boulder deposits such as this have been connected with the receding waters of Noah’s
Flood.14 Image from Pyenson
Lab15

But how were the numbers determined for the chart? By agreement of an international
committee which bases its thinking on the geological philosophy of uniformitarianism—a
philosophy that only allows slow and gradual processes as explanations, or local
catastrophes at the very largest.9
In other words, uniformitarian geologists are quite comfortable to hypothesise a
storm, earthquake or tsunami, but not the global Flood.

On the other hand, drawing on multiple lines of evidence, biblical geologists consider
the Flood a real event in history and the fossil layers to have been deposited mostly
during this event. The Flood washes away the millions of years because it falsifies
the assumptions on which the million-year ages are based. Most biblical geologists
would accept that the standard geological column represents the general order of
deposition during the Flood, with some of the uppermost parts of the column being
deposited in the 4,300-year period afterwards.10

The sandstone strata containing the whale fossils are contained within a local area
called the Caldera basin (figure 4).11

Similar localised basins are found at a number of places along the western coast
of Chile. Although the basins are relatively small for Flood deposits, the characteristics
of the sediments in these basins (figures 2 and 5) and the abundant fossils contained
in them indicate that deposition took place during a period of rapid and major coastal
subsidence.12 Coastal
subsidence of this nature is exactly what we would expect in the second part of
the Flood when the ocean basins sank, the continents rose and the floodwaters flowed
into the ocean. And major coastal subsidence explains the rapid burial of the whales
and other creatures because rapid burial was needed soon after death to preserve
the fossils. After the ocean basins had mostly subsided and the waters had almost
completely drained from the land, the whales and other animals that perished in
the catastrophe were buried—toward the end of Noah’s Flood. As Robert
Raeburn commented on one of the web news reports, the mystery disappears when we
interpret the rocks and the fossils from a Bible perspective.

How did 75 whales end up in the desert? Rows of prehistoric
bones unearthed in one of the most significant discoveries of its kind, 21st November
2011, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063973/Whales-desert-Prehistoric-bones-unearthed-Chiles-Atacama-desert.html.
Return to text.

See for example: Walsh, S.A. and Suarez, M.E., New penguin
remains from the Pliocene of Northern Chile, Historical Biology 18(2):115–126,
2006; p. 117 for a description of how ages are assigned to sedimentary strata. Return to text.

What are the fossilized remains of more than 80 whales doing
in the driest desert on Earth? io9.com/5861723/what-are-the-fossilized-remains-of-more-than-80-whales-doing-in-the-driest-desert-on-earth.
Return to text.

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Readers’ comments

Timothy C.,United States, 10 December 2011

If I’m not mistaken, this isn’t the only time marine fossils have been found in the middle of a land mass. Haven’t they also been found on top of mountains as well?

Tas Walker responds

Yes, that is true. 300 dead whales have been found in Peru. Marine fossils have been found at the top of Mt Everest.

Rae P.,New Zealand, 14 December 2011

It defies logical reasoning when atheists try to say there is no God. How did the heavens-the galaxies, planets, and stars get there all by themselves, by chance? How could they possibly get there without a Creator God? Anyone with half a brain should realise that. Do not the heavens and all their expanse point to a Creator God? Evolution and atheism are just used as an excuse to escape accountability for sin. If an atheist acknowledges there is a God, then he has to also acknowledge his own prideful sinful state, give up his life of sin, and confess his need of a Saviour. When it is in the natural rebellious nature of man without God to want to go on sinning and live in sin, then it is easier to deny a loving God and His existence, than own accountability for sin and truly repent. This is what REALLY lies behind atheism and evolution.

Danie P.,South Africa, 20 December 2011

From when I was little I had this huge curiosity of how everything works. (I became an engineer in the end.) I however found the Biblical explanation very strange and the secular worldview as the one making the most sense. But for years it bugged me continuously as I wasn’t able to tie my Christian upbringing together with my analytical and curious mind … bottomline I ended up not really believing the Bible’s account of origins, even though I didn’t even admit it to myself! Not to mention how a loving almighty God could allow so much misery in this world, life didn’t make sense.

Luckily there are people like CMI who’s got the analytical brains and the doctrine! These days I find it so easy to explain and understand everyday life. Life and mysteries like these whales are so much easier to understand through a Biblical worldview. THANK YOU CMI!

Rob H.,South Africa, 20 December 2011

When are these evolutionists going to get it? No animal when it dies and is exposed to the elements is going to be fossilised.

Wolf C.,South Africa, 20 December 2011

This article reminds me of something similar in Western Madagascar where one finds the Tsingy de Bemaraha-a unique massive geological phenomena consisting of razor sharp rock. I often travel to Madagascar for missionary work and still burning to visit this place. A bit difficult to get there but a Christian science teacher who have been there told me that this is an ancient coral reef which is tenths of kilometers long and about 60-80 km from the coast. How come a whole coral reef so far from the sea?

Great geological find and article solidifying Biblical accounts (proof) of Noah’s Flood. Worldwide this is common and not surprising. The spin-jocks via atheist-evolutionists will immediately have a bowel-movement of the mouth and somehow attach this to MBYB (MillionBillionYearsBufoonery, I guarantee you.

Peter D.,Canada, 22 December 2011

Very exciting! I myself found a number of clam shells about 4-5 feet below ground level when digging a trench for an electrical cable, about 100’ above the current water level of Shuswap, Lake in British Columbia, Canada.

A. O.,United States, 23 February 2012

This is pretty legit that they are finding these things that support the flood theory. It would make no sense in the realm of millions of years. I mean, how the heck would these whales fossilize if it were not for rapid burial?